The Part You’re Missing

Brandon Sheffield, Senior Contributing Editor at Gamasutra and Editor Emeritus of Game Developer magazine, has announced in a recent op-ed that it’s time to retire the word “gamer.” This meme comes up once in a while – don’t call them games, don’t use the word gamer, etc. – always with the same basis. It’s derisive. It minimizes the medium and the hobby. Yadda. These articles, including Sheffield’s, usually leave something out, though: what “gamers” should be called, if they can’t be called “gamers.”

Technically speaking Tap-Repeatedly is not a “games” site. I generally refer to it as an “entertainment media and culture” site, more to prevent painting ourselves into a topical corner than out of any sense of shame at the gamer concept. And since Sheffield is not wrong – “gamer” is sometimes used derisively and can have a negative connotation – refusing to pigeonhole the place has the added benefit of making it look a little better on people’s CVs.

Featured contributor to Tap-Repeatedly, a popular online magazine devoted to entertainment and culture

sounds better than

Featured contributor to Tap-Repeatedly, a popular videogame website.

That we do generally focus on games is the result of many factors. Our roots. Our interests. The writing staff we happen to have. And because of the games focus it wouldn’t be wrong to call the place a games site. After all, most of the people who visit are either

A) Gamers, or

B) My Mom

There’s no law, though, written up in the secret Tap-Repeatedly Staff Room, saying that you have to write about games. In my opening spiel to new writers I often make a point about that. “You don’t even have to write about games,” I say. “Write about whatever you like. Entertainment. Comics. Write about politics for all I care.”

Anyway, Brandon Sheffield notes in his article that the words “gamer” and “gaming” were banned during his time at Game Developer magazine, based on the not-incorrect claim that it was a synonym for gambling years before video games were invented. The flaw in that argument isn’t it’s veracity, it’s the amount of water it currently holds: I don’t think most people associate the word “gamer” with gambling any more. Now, gaming, perhaps. But gamer? Harder to conclusively demonstrate, and even if it were still the regular connotation, there’s no law saying it can’t be changed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disagreeing with the core of Brandon’s argument – namely, that “gamer” is a word fraught with negativism in some usage. But I do think he carries that viewpoint a little far:

But that impression of the game player as a do-nothing, thoughtless drone persists to this day. And that impression is perfectly encapsulated in the word “gamer.” That is the word marketing people created to target and describe the basement-dwelling manboy. The person who just wants to play games and cares about nothing else. That person who only exists to shriek with horror and offense on internet forums about something he or she absolutely loves. And yet we have embraced this word with open arms, and proudly display it on our twitter tags. Microsoft even has its Gamer Points.

The word “gamer” was not invented by marketing. It was invented by… English. In fact, Marketing departments might well have been the ones warning that the word “gamer” might wind up being perceived negatively. You don’t need to analyze too deeply to figure out the origins of “gamer.”

A gamer is one who plays games. Even Sheffield remarks on this – moviegoers, concertgoers, etc. His argument that “gamer” has much more stigma associated with it than “moviegoer” isn’t wrong, but I see that as more a matter of time passing and increasingly widespread social acceptance than anything else. Practically everyone is a gamer right now (Solitaire and Angry Birds count). People who call themselves “gamers” tend to do so because it defines their preferred form of entertainment. It’s their answer to “what do you do in your spare time?”

Sheffield again:

The word “gamer” is regressive. It accepts the portrait of us painted by the mainstream news media, and every time I hear it or read it it actually makes me feel a little sick. I believe in this art form, and I believe in the people who make it. That’s why I am so hard on this industry, because I believe that as great as it sometimes is, it can get better.

Again, I don’t precisely disagree, though I think he’s running that ball a little farther than it needs to be run. You feel sick when you hear the word? Damn.

I don’t mind the word “gamer,” myself. I don’t love it, but I don’t mind it. I use it knowing that it can carry a very negative connotation, but I also use it knowing it’s the best existing term. Sheffield doesn’t really go into alternatives in his piece; he just says that “gamer” has to be retired.

In favor of what? Sheffield briefly mentions the word “fan,” but then seems to dismiss it. Are we to invent a word, then? Is the medium of the video game to be renamed the Audiovisual Ludic Experience? or should we go with Interactive Fiction, like Chris Crawford keeps saying we ought to (mostly, so far as I can tell, as a way of avoiding making games)? The scientific and critical study of games and gameplay is “Ludology,” from the Latin ludus, meaning game.

I’ve got it! Rather than the term “gamers,” we’re LUDDITES.

Oh wait. Fuck.

I agree that there’s stigma, and I agree the terms hurt us from time to time. But without a plausible alternative to adopt, complaining about the word “gamer” is just that – complaining.

Besides, there’s another reason to stick with the term “gamer:” I personally use it to judge other people. When they hear that I’m “a gamer,” or that I work “in gaming,” I’m able to quickly determine, based on their facial expression alone, whether they’re a person worth wasting my time with. That’s a silver lining right there.

About the author

Tap-Repeatedly Overlord Steerpike is a games industry journalist and consultant. His earliest memories are of video games, and hopes his last memories will be of them as well. He’s a featured monthly columnist with the International Game Developers Association, and is internationally published in an assortment of dull e-Learning texts and less dull gaming publications. He also lectures on games at various universities.

8 Responses to The Part You’re Missing

matt w05/15/2013

I’m not fond of the word “gamer” either, and in fact though I come here to read about games I wouldn’t call myself a “gamer.” Part of this is definitely the douchebro stereotype, but it’s also that I don’t think “gamer” is like “concertgoer” and “moviegoer” at all. I’m a moviegoer or concertgoer only when I’m actually at those things; it’s not a part of my identity. No one would ever say “I’m a concertgoer.” When I want to talk about my musical obsessions, I say “I’m a jazz fan.”*

“Gamers” seem like people who put game playing as an essential part of their identity — not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s just not something I do with this medium, so when people talk about “gamers” that makes me think “not me.” (Well, and the douchebro problem.) For what I am, I’d call myself “someone who plays games” or a “gameplayer” if you want one word. Although, am I a gameplayer when I’m not playing games? Is that even important?

To my mind this sort of argument fundamentally misses the point that language emerges organically from widespread usage. Clarion calls to stop using this word and start using that word seldom achieve success. There are obvious exceptions – neologisms or portmanteau coined to fill a linguistic gap, for one, or terms that begin their life in critical theory and the radical core of a subculture but expand out from there as social or cultural mores shift (I am thinking here of LGBTQ theory and language, though I appreciate that it may be thought problematic to describe same as a “subculture” – I just can’t think of a better word that doesn’t make this comment balloon larger than it already has).

Synonamess Botch05/18/2013

I’m not overly fond of labels as a means of defining an identity either. I’ve always conflated that sort of thing with youth. I play games, quite a bit actually. I’ve never considered calling myself a “gamer.” It just seems silly. But then I’m also not terribly interested in whether or not video games are considered socially acceptable.

Mike "Scout" Gust05/27/2013

I don’t know. I don’t think you can just alter such a pervasive noun as “game” or an adjective like “gamer” by proclamation. You’re just going to be perceived as, oh, I don’t know, insecure?

If there is going to be a sea change in how computerized adventuring is going to be perceived it is either going to come from the street in a most unexpected way or the word is going to be “reclaimed”. My bet is on the former.

I think this is what Shaun was saying, more or less.

Gregg B05/28/2013

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and my new workplace has a nice birthday initiative thing where people put money together for presents when it’s somebody’s birthday. I’m not much of a birthday person but I thought it was a nice way of ‘brightening up’ the workplace atmosphere.

Now, me being new I expected to receive a few ‘generic’ presents, y’know, a mug, socks, some shower gel and smelly stuff for the bathroom. I got some shower gel and smelly stuff, but I also got a £15 GAME voucher (that’s the name of the UK’s biggest videogame retailer — yeah I know, what a terrible name). My department were all sat around me when I opened my presents and I said ‘How did you know I like games?’, because I’d not really made much of a deal about it, to which one of my colleagues responded with ‘Well, we have to do our research’, with a smile on her face. I think my closest colleague must have relayed something back to the department because I doubt they found me here on Tap!

Anyway, somebody remarked ‘So you play games do you?’ and I said, without hesitation, ‘Yeah, I’m a big gamer.’ Now, I don’t really like the term for all the negative baggage it carries but, you know, if somebody as ‘well-adjusted’, amicable and out-going as me can dash everyone’s perceptions of what a gamer should or shouldn’t look or be like, then why the hell not? ‘Gamer’ isn’t going anywhere in a hurry and the sooner we all start using it — especially us, the well versed and initiated — rather than the ‘basement-dwelling manboys’, the better. In a sense, it’s almost damaging to let the term runaway with itself while we’re walking around trying to distance ourselves from it. Gamers are the store front, perhaps more accurately, the clerks, for this amazing medium so we should be out there selling it, not shirking away because of some tired and easily deflected stereotyping. The more we kick against it the less it becomes ours. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and I think Sheffield’s stance is part of the problem.

I certainly think it’s a cop-out to use excuses like “the word ‘gamer’ has associations with gambling.” I suppose that yes, it does, but the word “chip” also has associations with gambling but we still use it to describe assorted potato products. Words can have many meanings, and even negative connotations change with time (“nice” meant “stupid” in Middle English).

As Gregg says, a person who’s clearly not any of those ridiculous stereotypes, yet who happily says he or she is a gamer, does more to create a positive impression of the medium than avoiding the term does.

Besides, invented solutions usually fail, as ShaunCG says. And every word has a connotation, some of them bad. What if not gamers? “Players?” that has a connotation. What if not “gaming?” Playing? That’s just… weird. It is what it is, and if people have a bad perception of it, work to change their perception. Don’t hide under a new word and hope nobody notices that you changed your name from Datsun to Nissan.

To Matt W’s point, it’s true that “moviegoer” and “gamer” have different implications. Everyone’s a moviegoer and few people would use it to define themselves, except the moment when they’re going to a movie. “Gamer” is a personal descriptor, like “jazz fan” or “male model.” Wanting to change the label, though, seems more like hiding, as though we ought to be ashamed of something. I wouldn’t say I’m completely defined by being a gamer, but it is a major facet of who I am, not just because of what I do. The more gamers out there, wearing matching socks and demonstrating that they’re perfectly comfortable in social situations, the better. That’ll take acceptance farther than inventing a new word.

matt w05/30/2013

Yeah all of that seems right. I guess the issue I have (and this is something that Anna Anthropy has talked about) is the hint of dividing up the world up between gamers and non-gamers. Other media don’t have quite that phenomenon (except in subgenres, like lots of the crazy music I listen to). And I think it maybe makes people feel “Well I’m not a gamer so I can ignore this stuff,” and also makes designers feel “Well my players will be gamers so I can expect them to do gamer things.” Not things like Portal in-jokes necessarily, but things like basic platforming skill; my sister-in-law (who plays Plants vs. Zombies) couldn’t beat You Have to Burn the Rope.

Maybe this is just the nature of interactive media, but it’s something that worries me.

Gregg B05/31/2013

Yeah, I can buy that issue more. I don’t think ‘gamer’ has to be exclusive though, although I would say that gaming is certainly my primary time sink, so in that regard it’s a good descriptor. One of the reasons I’m reluctant to say I’m a huge film buff or music lover is because I know there are plenty of others out there who live and breath the stuff far more than I do, but compared to 90% of the people I personally know, I’m a big film and music geek. It’s all relative I suppose. I know some self-proclaimed film buffs who only watch blockbusters and couldn’t tell me what Oldboy is, or Spirited Away.

The other thing to consider is that I suspect most people watch more film or listen to more music or read more books than they do play games, so gaming is quite a ‘specialist’ hobby when you look at it like that eg. saying you’re into music is like saying you’re into eating. I think that’s why ‘gamer’ has more meaning, because the pastime doesn’t seem as widespread (so it makes sense for other more widespread pastimes to use more granular terms). My girlfriend plays games but she knows it’s not the central ‘pillar’ of her life — books are, followed by films — and she knows a lot about games through me. Is she a gamer? Or what about her brother who plays a few times a week in the evenings with me and some friends? Is he a gamer?

It is a nebulous term when you start getting down to the details, but I think it has its uses if you want to imply that you play more than Solitaire or Candy Crush Saga — that gaming is more of a focus than a fun diversion — without going into specifics. Gaming’s getting more and more popular and more and more diverse so perhaps at some point we’ll be able to go into what types of games we play in more public/mainstream circles without confusing people. I suspect not, but perhaps we already can?